EMDR, for “Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing”, is a psychotherapy based on eye movements. It helps alleviate post-traumatic stress disorder. But not only. Depression or phobias can also benefit.
No need to takeecstasy or even the MDMA to treat the post-traumatic stress. You just have to move your eyes! A therapy called EMDR (for Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing) is effective.
Discovered thirty years ago by the American psychologist Francine Shapiro, it consists in exerting alternating bilateral stimulations (SBA) on a patient, while the latter remembers the traumatic event. According to The Conversation, 80% of people with so-called “simple” trauma are treated in one to eight EMDR sessions.
What is post-traumatic stress?
Post-traumatic stress disorder, also called post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), is an anxiety disorder that develops after a traumatic event, during which the person experiences significant distress. It can be a natural disaster, a attack, a road accident, physical or sexual abuse.
We are talking about post-traumatic stress disorder when the period of anxiety following the shocking event is unusually long. The traumatized person constantly relives this event through memories, nightmares. Certain thoughts can turn into obsession and cause depression. Other signs may appear: emotional numbness, sleeping troubles, irritability, hypervigilance. According to a study, the trauma could also leave hereditary sequelae.
Detach the memory of the trauma
EMDR is a therapy that works on the memories that haunt someone with post-traumatic stress disorder. The healthcare professional applies Bilateral Applied Stimulation (SBA) while the patient remembers the shocking event.
These are eye movements going from right to left and left to right. But there are also sounds, “beeps” which reach from one ear to the other. And tapping on one part of the body (hand or knee) on one side, then on the other. Then the therapist stops all stimulation and the patient has to describe his feelings. Then, the SBAs resume, and this for several sessions. Until the day when the patient’s memory is no longer linked to something traumatic.
EMDR alters the brain’s perception of memory
When a memory is traumatic, it is not processed by the cortex in the brain, but in the limbic brain, the part of the brain related to emotions. In a way, EMDR makes it possible to “recode” traumatic information and put it back in the right place to be processed.
Eye movements reduce the emotional charge of the memory. Thus, the amygdala, part of the brain linked to the feeling of danger or fear, is no longer activated. And it is when the latter is no longer activated that the trauma disappears. When you experience a little shock, this restructuring process happens naturally. But in the event of a big trauma, this is not the case. And the symptoms of post-traumatic stress appear.
Some therapists use EMDR to also treat phobias, addictions or depression. Last June, Inserm researchers found that this technique could be beneficial in reducing patient stress. received in the emergency room.
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